A narrative from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh in which the tyrant Zahhak, kissed on each shoulder by Ahriman disguised as a cook, grows a serpent from each shoulder that demands to be fed human brains daily; the blacksmith Kaveh raises a revolt after Zahhak's men take his sons, and the hero Feridun overthrows Zahhak, binding him in chains inside Mount Damavand rather than killing him outright.
Facts
History
Historical NoteFerdowsi completed the Shahnameh around 1010 AD, drawing on older Sasanian era Persian prose sources and oral epic tradition that themselves reach back toward the Avestan figure Azi Dahaka, so the poem is a late compilation of a much older layered tradition rather than its origin point. 1 Historical NoteKaveh's leather apron, raised on a pole as his standard during the revolt, became in later Iranian tradition the Derafsh Kaviani, a legendary banner said to have been carried by Persian kings down to the Sasanian era, so a detail from this myth was read as the founding legend of a real royal military symbol. 1 Meaning
Central MotifA tyrant transformed into a monster by demonic flattery, overthrown by a smith's revolt and bound rather than slain 1 Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteIranologists trace Zahhak back to the Avestan dragon Azi Dahaka, three headed and three mouthed in Zoroastrian scripture, read as evidence that Ferdowsi's fully human tyrant with two serpents is a historicized, humanized late retelling of an older purely monstrous demon. 1 Text
Source TextShahnameh (The Persian Book of Kings), the reign of Zahhak 1 Controversy
Point in DisputeScholars dispute how far Kaveh's blacksmith revolt, still commemorated as a symbol of popular uprising in modern Iranian political culture, reflects an old element of the story against how far it was elaborated or emphasized specifically by Ferdowsi himself. 1 Sources
Primary SourceDick Davis's English verse and prose translation of the Shahnameh is the standard modern scholarly edition in English. 1 Connections
Associated With
Source Shahnameh: The Persian Book of KingsAbolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis
Source Shahnameh: The Persian Book of KingsAbolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis
Belongs to Tradition
Source Shahnameh: The Persian Book of KingsAbolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis
Sources
1. Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings
Abolqasem Ferdowsi, translated by Dick Davis, Viking Penguin, 2006
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